Name of creator

Biographical history

Pamela Reynolds was born in Zimbabwe, and attained a Bachelor of Arts degree in History at the University of Cape Town (1965), a Certificate in Education at the University College London (1966) and a Bachelor of Education degree at the University of Cape Town (1968). She attained a Master of Education degree from Harvard University (1970) and a Master of Literature degree at the University of Delhi (1974). She was awarded the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology by the University of Cape Town (1984).

Pamela Reynolds held a number of research posts at the University of Zimbabwe and was Director of Childhood Action (1984-1991) as well as the Save-the-Children Project in Zambezi Valley (1987-1988). She was Senior Lecturer and Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Cape Town between 1991 and 1997, and Professor and Head of the Department of Social Anthropology from 1998 to 2000. She was Visiting Professor in the Department of Anthropology in the University of California, Berkeley (2000-2001) and Presidential Visiting Professor in the International Institute of the University of Michigan, Ann Abor (2001-2002). From 2002 to 2009, Pamela Reynolds was Professor in the Department of Anthropology, John Hopkins University.

Among several grants and awards, Pamela Reynolds was elected Fellow of the University of Cape Town for life (1995), and appointed Emerita Professor at John Hopkins University (2009) and Honorary Professor in Anthropology at the University of Cape Town (2010).

As an anthropologist, Pamela Reynold’s life’s work has focused on studying the experience of children and youth in the context of various societies and circumstances, using a variety of disciplines. Her doctoral research at the University of Cape Town was conducted between 1979 and 1981 as an ethnographic study of cognition among seven-year-old Xhosa children in the Crossroads informal settlement in greater Cape Town. Her research findings were published in Childhood in Crossroads: Cognition and Society in South Africa. Cape Town, David Philip (with W. B. Eerdmans), 1989, while her full dissertation (1983) is accessible on-line at https://open.uct.ac.za/bitstream/handle/11427/23645/Reynolds_Children_crossroads_an_1983_1.pdf?sequence=1 Pamela Reynolds also edited Growing Up in a Divided Society: The Contexts of Childhood in South Africa (with Sandra Burman). Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1986. Re-issued in hardback and paperback by Northwestern University Press (with a new Preface by Robert Coles), 1990.

Pamela Reynolds’ next study, relating to traditional healers and childhood in Zimbabwe, was conducted among indigenous healers (n’anga) in Musami, Mashonaland, Zimbabwe, mainly during 1982-1983. Her research was published as Traditional Healers and Childhood in Zimbabwe. Ohio University Press, 1996.

Between 1984 and 1989 Pamela Reynolds conducted research among the Tonga people of the Zambezi Valley in Zimbabwe. Her first study based in Mola in the Omay Communal Area, related to the work performed by children in subsistence agriculture (1984-1987). The multi-facetted research was a study both of children and of agricultural labour and resulted in the book Dance Civet Cat: Child Labour in the Zambezi Valley. London: Zed Press (with Ohio University Press and Baobab Publications), 1991.

Between 1987 and 1989 Pamela Reynolds continued her work among the Tonga people to produce a comprehensive book for children and youth reflecting all aspects of the Tonga heritage and environment. This was published as Lwaano Lwanyika: The Tonga Book of the Earth (with Colleen Crawford Cousins). Harare, 1991. Two editions were published: one in English and one in Tonga. It was republished by the International African Institute and PANOS in 1993 for worldwide distribution.

In the 1990s Pamela Reynolds commenced research and gathering sources for a projected biography on the anthropologist Monica Wilson. In a conference she gave a paper and contributed a chapter “An Anthropologist’s Reflections on the Writings of Monica Wilson” in Confronting Social Change in Africa: Reflections of the Life, Work and Legacy of Monica Hunter Wilson. Edited by Lesley Banks and Andrew Banks. Cambridge University Press, 2013.

However when South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was announced, instead of continuing research on Monica Wilson, Pamela Reynolds directed her research towards the work of the TRC. She made a detailed study of the hearings into human rights violations and restitution processes attending many of the hearings in various centres. Linked to the broader survey, she conducted research with 14 men in Zwelethemba township in Worcester, mainly during 1997-1998, who had as youths been involved in the anti-apartheid struggle in the 1980s, dubbed as a group as “MAZE” for Male Activists of Zwelethemba. (This was a parallel study to that of Prof Fiona Ross, who researched the experience of women in the township.) Pamela Reynolds’ inaugural lecture at the University of Cape Town in 1997 related to the TRC, while she also delivered many formal lectures and talks on the subject around the world. Her research resulted in the book War in Worcester. Youth and the Apartheid State. Fordham University Press, 2013 and KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2014. She also contributed a chapter on the subject to the book The Uncaring, Intricate World, with essays by Todd Meyers, Achille Mbembe, Julie Livingston, and Jane Guyer. Duke University Press, 2017.

A select bibliography for Pamela Reynolds is given below:

Books

The Uncaring, Intricate World, with essays by Todd Meyers, Achille Mbembe, Julie Livingston, and Jane Guyer. Duke University Press, 2017.War in Worcester. Youth and the Apartheid State. Fordham University Press, 2013 and KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2014.Traditional Healers and Childhood in Zimbabwe. Ohio University Press, 1996.Dance Civet Cat: Child Labour in the Zambezi Valley. London: Zed Press (with Ohio University Press and Baobab Publications), 1991.Lwaano Lwanyika: The Tonga Book of the Earth (with Colleen Crawford Cousins). Harare, 1991. Two editions published: one in English and one in Tonga. Republished by the International African Institute and PANOS in 1993 for worldwide distribution.Childhood in Crossroads: Cognition and Society in South Africa. Cape Town, David Philip (with W. B. Eerdmans), 1989.Growing Up in a Divided Society: The Contexts of Childhood in South Africa (edited with Sandra Burman). Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1986. Re-issued in hardback and paperback by Northwestern University Press (with a new Preface by Robert Coles), 1990.

“An Anthropologist’s Reflections on the Writings of Monica Wilson.” In Confronting Social Change in Africa: Reflections of the Life, Work and Legacy of Monica Hunter Wilson. Edited by Lesley Banks and Andrew Banks. Cambridge University Press, 2013.

“Mapping the Conflict.” In anthropologies. Edited by Richard Baxstrom and Todd Meyers. Creative Capitalism, 2008.“Neutralizing the Young: The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Youth.” In On Knowing and Not Knowing in the Anthropology of Medicine. Edited by Roland Littlewood. Left Coast Press. 2007.

“Afterword.” In Under Fire: Childhood in the Shadow of War. Edited by Andrea Immel and Elizabeth Goodenough. Wayne State University Press. 2007.

“Forming Identities: Conceptions of Pain and Children’s Expressions of Pain in South Africa.” In Makers and Breakers, Made and Broken: Children and Youth as Emerging Categories in Postcolonial Africa. Edited by Alcinda Honwana and Filip de Boeck. Oxford: James Currey Publishers, 2005.

“Adolescents and Individuality.” In The Tonga-Speaking Peoples of Zambia and Zimbabwe: Essays in Honor of Elizabeth Colson. Edited by Ken Vickery. University of America Publishers 2005.

“Voices not Heard: Small Histories and the Work of Repair” (with Fiona C. Ross). In To Repair the Irreparable: Reparations and Reconstruction in South Africa. Edited by Erik Doxtader and Charles Villa-Vicencio. The Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, 2004.

“Youth, War and Contested Childhoods. An Introductory Essay.” In Youth Activism: An International Encyclopaedia. Edited by Lonnie Sherrod and Connie Flanagan. Greenwood Press, 2005.

“Adolescents and Individuality.” In The Tonga-Speaking Peoples of Zambia and Zimbabwe: Essays in Honor of Elizabeth Colson. Edited by Ken Vickery. University of America Publishers, 2005.

“’Where Wings Take Dream’ On Children in the Work of War and the War of Work.” In Children and Youth on the Frontline: Ethnography, Armed Conflict and Displacement. Edited by Jo Boyden and Jo de Berry. Berghahn Books, 2005. (First Published in The Journal of the International Institute, 9(2): 2-3, Winter 2002.)

“The Ground of All Making: State Violence, the Family and Political Activists.” In Violence and Subjectivity. Edited by Veena Das, Arthur Kleinman, Pamela Reynolds, and Mamphela Ramphele. University of California Press, 2000.

“Youth and the Politics of Culture in South Africa.” In Children and the Politics of Culture. Edited by Sharon Stephens. Princeton University Press, 1995.

“Dreams and the Constitution of Self Among the Zezuru.” In Dreaming, Religion and Society. Edited by M.C. Jedrej and R. Shaw. Leiden: E.J Brill, 1990.

“Through the Looking Glass: Participant Observation with Children in southern Africa.” In Through the Looking Glass: Children and Health Promotion. Edited by J. Ross and V. Bergum. Ontario: Canadian Public Health Association, 1990.

“The Training of Traditional Healers in Mashonaland.” In The Professionalisation of African Medicine. Edited by Murray last and Gordon L Chavunduka. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1986.

“Children of Tribulation: The Need to Heal and the Means to Heal War Trauma.” Africa, 1990; 60 (1).

“Healing Children’s Trauma after War.” Children on the Front Line. The impact of Aparheid, Destabilisation and Warfare on Children in Southern and South Africa. A Report for UNICEF. New York: United Nations Children’s Fund, 1989 (Third Edition).

“The Double Strategy of Children in South Africa.” Sociological Studies of Child Development, 1989 (3).

“Concepts of Childhood Drawn from the Ideas and Practice of Traditional Healers in Musami.” Zambezia, 1986; 13 (1).

“Children in Zimbabwe. Rights and Power in Relation to Work.”Anthropology Today, 1985, 1 (3).

“Men without Children.” Second Carnegie Inquiry into Poverty and Development in Southern Africa, Conference Paper No. 5, University of Cape Town, 1984.

Repository

Archival history

Immediate source of acquisition or transfer

Donated by Prof Pamela Reynolds, 2017

Scope and content

This collection comprises the field notes and documentation produced in Pamela Reynolds’ life’s work as an anthropologist. Her studies focused on the experience of children and youth in the context of various societies and circumstances, using a variety of disciplines. The studies and their published outputs are described in chronological sequence in the biographical note for Pamela Reynolds in this database. This scope note describes the studies according to the sequence of the series for each study within the collection.

Series A comprises field notes and documentation produced in Pamela Reynolds’ study of child labour among the Tonga people in Mola, Omay, on the Zimbabwean side of the Zambezi Valley, conducted between 1984-1987. The physical extent of Series A is 38 notebooks, 48 folders and 8 audio cassette tapes.

Series B reflects Pamela Reynolds’ continued work among the Tonga people between 1987-1989 aimed at producing a comprehensive book for children and youth reflecting all aspects of the Tonga heritage and environment. The series comprises 85 notebooks, 2 journals, 75 folders and oversize material.

Series C contains the documentation of Pamela Reynolds’ study of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings and processes, in conjunction with her research conducted with 14 men in Zwelethemba township in Worcester, mainly during 1997-1998, who had as youths been involved in the anti-apartheid struggle in the 1980s, dubbed as a group as “MAZE” for Male Activists of Zwelethemba. The physical extent is 40 notebooks; 60 folders; 3 albums; 7 audio cassette tapes; 3 compact discs; one large and one small oversize roll; oversize photocopy of maps and oversize chapter off-print; and 4 archival boxes (of household surveys). (Pamela Reynolds has noted that to her great regret most of her MAZE research notebooks were destroyed in a basement flood in Baltimore, while she was working in the United States.)

Series D, Traditional healers and childhood in Zimbabwe, reflects Pamela Reynolds’ study of indigenous healers (n’anga) in Musami, Mashonaland, Zimbabwe, in relation to children, conducted mainly during 1982-1983. The series comprises 5 folders; 19 notebooks; 12 audio cassette tapes; and 3 bound volumes of photocopies of newspaper articles together with a handwritten index in notebook, as well as typed index cards.

Series E contains the records of Pamela Reynolds’ ethnographic study in the cognition of seven-year-old Xhosa children in the Crossroads informal settlement in greater Cape Town, conducted between 1979 and 1981 for her doctoral dissertation and later published. The series comprises 10 folders; and 35 audio cassette tapes.

Series F contains Pamela Reynolds’ research notes and sources gathered for a projected biography on Monica Wilson in the 1990s. The series comprises 6 folders; 2 notebooks; 4 audio cassette tapes; and a set of cards.